


Lovely

by jamespotterthefirst



Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: F/M, Social Media
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 23:40:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,128
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23985454
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jamespotterthefirst/pseuds/jamespotterthefirst
Summary: Adding her on social media was a dangerous mistake. Particularly when she posts a picture looking like THAT.
Relationships: Ethan Ramsey/Main Character (Open Heart)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	Lovely

“Post, post, post!” her roommates chanted with alcohol fueled enthusiasm. 

Lilac, the least drunk of the group, though not by a lot, peered at her friends quizzically. They were sprawled on different parts of their living room, gazing at her with glazed eyes and sloppy smiles. In her own drunken state, she wondered how the night turned from board games and drinks to Lilac spilling her guts about Ethan following her on social media. Of course, she had left out his name and so her roommates only surmised it was some new flame she was interested in. 

God, she wanted him with such desperation that it physically hurt sometimes. If she hadn’t had several drinks, she’d feel miserable and somewhat pathetic.

“You guys don’t even know who this guy is,” Lilac returned and she realized immediately that was not entirely true. As the words left her mouth, Sienna and Elijah shared a massive, knowing grin. Lilac’s face flushed at the memory of running into them while trying to sneak Ethan out all those months ago. 

Luckily, Aurora and Jackie were too drunk to notice the exchange. 

“It’s that Lahela guy, isn’t it?” Aurora offered. 

“Not likely,” returned Jackie at once. “Lilac said this guy was good-looking and smart.” She instantly wrinkled her nose, looking far more dejected than was warranted. “It’s a lot more fun when he’s here to hear me insult him.”

“That one was _weak_ ,” Elijah commented with a laugh, elongating the last word. “If he was here, he would’ve destroyed you with a comeback.”

Before Jackie could reply, Sienna leaped up from her place on the rug and plopped down next to Lilac on the couch. “I know what picture you should post,” she exclaimed excitedly, brandishing her phone in front of Lilac’s face. A blur of green was all she could see as Sienna waved the phone. “Remember that green dress you bought for your cousin’s wedding before they called it off?”

“Let’s talk about that for a second,” Aurora said with renewed interest. 

Sienna didn’t seem to hear this because she went on, “The one with the neckline and the slit?” 

Lilac remembered. She also remembered the picture she had sent Sienna to show it off. Lilac standing in front of a body-length mirror clad in the forest green number, phone strategically positioned to cover her face so the emphasis would be on the plunging neckline and on the shapely leg escaping from the slit. 

“That dress could kill a man,” Sienna said approvingly as they both inspected the picture on her screen. “It’s equal parts classy and also—” 

“Slutty?” Lilac offered. It was how she described her style on most days and she was far from ashamed of it. 

“If he wasn’t in such great shape, you’d give the poor man a heart attack. I’m sure Eth—” she started but abruptly stopped when she remembered the others. One nervous glance around told Lilac they were not listening anyway. They were busy filling Aurora in on the drama of the canceled wedding. Sienna lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper, “I’m sure your _mystery guy_ will love it. He was all over you when you wore that navy blue dress in Miami.” 

Perhaps it was the memory of that night and his kisses on the balcony, or the alcohol coursing through her, or maybe the way her heart pined for him every time their eyes met, wishing desperately they could do more, that made Lilac say, “Fine, I’ll post a—”

“Thirst trap,” Elijah chimed in with a cheer. 

They all laughed out loud, even Lilac. Another indicative that they should really stop drinking for the night. The semi rational part of her brain reminded her that she should’ve stopped drinking when posting a provocative picture with the most basic pose imaginable in hopes of entrapping a man that might not even be watching seemed like a good idea. 

With a burst of courage and recklessness, Lilac found the picture, wrote a ridiculous caption that would make her hungover self tomorrow morning cringe, and pressed “post” before they could spend another twenty minutes discussing her predicament and before the _chanting_ resumed.

_________________________________________________

The account was supposed to be strictly for a one-time use. Ethan had planned to delete the damned thing as soon as Gwyneth’s case had been solved and treated. Wasn’t that part of the reason why he had allowed Lilac to use that ridiculous picture of him at the beach? It was meant to be a gag, something that would never see the light of day. 

Yet, he had found himself gravitating towards the tab left open on his laptop every time he used it. His subconscious had equated the inane website with learning more about Lilac. And despite his many attempts to convince himself that he shouldn’t care, he did. She was the only person he had ever wanted to learn more about, with such a desperate conviction that would be alarming to her if he ever confessed. 

He cared so deeply that the word “care” did not properly describe the unbridled longing in his chest. One did not flee to the Amazon for two months to escape “care.” 

Ethan pushed that dangerous thought away. 

“Thirty minutes, Ethan,” Reggie said from the doorway to the bar. It was his usual way to inform him how long it’d take him to clean-up and thus the amount of time Ethan had left to enjoy his drink in blissful solitude. 

He was alone, typically how he enjoyed drinking, yet he found no peace. Memories of the last time he was at that very beer garden with her accosted his thoughts. The way her bright green eyes looked startling in the golden lights floating all around and the feel of her soft lips on his. 

Before he could stop himself, he pulled out his phone and opened the app. His weakness was such that he had figured out how to download the damn app on his phone. It was almost comical that now he could look at her whenever and however long he wanted on a screen, as if she wasn’t inhabiting his mind at every hour. 

Ethan was determined to find his favorite post, a picture of her at that very bar, taken a few months ago by her friend, Dr. Trinh. Before he could, however, his eye caught a notification from the app itself.

_“Pictagram: dr.allende just shared a new post.”_

It was time stamped one hour ago. Ethan briefly commended himself on going a whole hour without staring at her face like the pitiful stalker he was becoming. Before he could feel ashamed and pathetic, he opened her new post and almost choked on his drink.

**  
  
**“Fuck,” he murmured into the quiet night, setting his glass down on a side table nearby. Without realizing it, he sat much straighter on the outdoor sofa. **  
**

His eyes desperately roamed every inch of the image, unsure where to settle. There was the expanse of her exposed leg, or the dangerously plunging neckline of her dress, the casual sway of her hip. His hands had clutched on to those hips, fingers digging slightly into her skin as they both lost themselves to unmitigated pleasure.

It was downright _criminal_ how good she looked in the picture, exposing enough to drive a man insane but not enough to be crass. Apparently, he was not the only one to think so. In the mere hour the picture had been up, it had already accrued 220 of those “likes” Lilac had explained. 

Ethan continued to stare at the picture like a starved man. It took everything in his power not to call her and somehow convince her to take him back, his morals and conviction be damned. That was the power Dr. Lilac Allende and her green dress wielded over him. 

The distant clanging of bottles startled him out his thoughts so abruptly that Ethan almost dropped his phone. He caught it quite unceremoniously and as he turned the screen back to him, he noticed a red heart animation appearing and disappearing in the middle of her picture. 

“Shit,” he muttered when he realized he, too, like the 220 others had “liked” the picture. Upon further inspection, he realized he had even accidentally commented the single letter “I”. 

A bit frantic, he tapped at his phone to figure out a way to get rid of the damn thing. He could not bear Lilac learning he leered at her picture at 1 AM and was so affected he could barely type a coherent sentence. Even if that was a hundred percent true. Ethan was getting nowhere, except to an early grave, when a text message notification came in. 

_“Like what you see?”_

It was Lilac.

Goddammit, she had seen. 

Ethan considered not replying. Yet, even as he entertained the thought, he knew he couldn’t resist. 

_“Along with 220 others,”_ he replied before he could stop himself. He realized belatedly that the real count was 220 others plus Bryce Lahela (scalpellahela). 

_“Those 220 others can look all they want but they can’t touch,”_ was her immediate response. 

His breath caught a little. The power she had over him was astounding. 

_“But you can,”_ she added when he did not respond. 

God almighty. She was determined to kill him. 

A few minutes ticked by and his phone buzzed with an incoming call. When he started the call, he was greeted by what sounded like distant wolf whistles, followed by the sound of a door closing. 

“You okay over there?” she asked by form of greeting. Her voice was teasing in a way that was absolutely maddening. 

“Fine,” Ethan replied in what he hoped was a convincing, leveled voice. 

“Where are you anyway?” She spoke in a sultry sort of drawl that did nothing to placate his traitorous body’s reaction to her photo. 

“Donahue’s. Finishing up my drink,” he replied, eyeing his forgotten whiskey on the table where he had set it. “Anyway, sorry if I awoke you. I accidentally liked and commented.”

“Accidentally,” she repeated in a tone that suggested she did not believe him. “So you don’t like my dress and you’re not at a loss for words?” 

“I never said that,” he returned at once. “You look…”

What was a professional way of saying _“fucking irresistible”_ or _“like I want to peel that dress off with my teeth”_? 

“Good,” he said lamely, though his strangled voice suggested far more. She picked up on that, of course. 

“And what are you going to do about that?” she asked in a deliberately innocent whisper. 

“Lilac,” he warned, as he always did when their conversation veered towards volatile territory. 

“There’s nothing wrong with just telling me, Ethan,” she offered and he could have sworn she sounded almost pleading. 

He did not argue, as he usually did. Mostly because another intellectual argument with her, in addition to the photo and the way she all but purred in his ear, would allow his desire for her to win. He’d be on his way to her bed in moments. 

“Tell me,” she prompted again. 

With a sigh, he gave in. 

“That dress is…”

“Yes?” 

“Sinful.”

There was a small pause at the other end of the line. 

“Should I wear it out?”

“Absolutely,” he returned, completely enraptured by the direction this was all heading. He could feel his inhibitions vanish.

“Where to?” 

“My bed.”

She did not miss a beat. 

“Ideally, I’d be out of the dress for that, then,” she returned in that sexy drawl of hers. Ethan was astounded he was not in the car, speeding to her apartment at that very moment. 

“Fuck, Lilac,” he murmured. 

“So you can do that, yes,” she responded in a whisper so low that he almost didn’t catch it.

He said nothing, fearing he would sound like an incomprehensible imbecile if he did. 

A long silence, and then, “Ethan?”

“Yes?”

He heard her suck in a breath, almost as if mustering up courage. “I miss you.” 

There was an unbearable tugging at his chest. He never had her courage, but now that she had laid it out for him, he couldn’t resist admitting the same. “You know I do too.” 

Another small silence. 

“Come over,” she said at last and he could hear the tones of humor in her voice. Almost as if she knew what he was going to say. Perhaps she did know. The brief illusion in which they saw each other as lovers and not colleagues, had inevitably come to an end. As it always did. 

He laughed good-naturedly. “Go to sleep.”

“With you?”

Despite himself, he grinned. He knew at the other end, she would be too. 

“ _Good night_ , Lilac.” 

“Good night, Ethan.”

**Author's Note:**

> Ah, these two will have to sleep together sooner than later. 
> 
> THANK YOU so much if you read this silly, pointless thing! 


End file.
